Westboro's Phelps was a mouthpiece for hate

Fred Phelps, leader of the funeral-picketing Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., died last week at 84.

Late Wednesday, to be exact. It's taken me this long to type his name without feeling like I had to vomit.

Phelps' group picketed here in Delaware a number of times over the years, waving their "God Hates..." signs in Seaford at a soldier's funeral and in Brandywine Hundred at the funeral for Vice President Joe Biden's mother, just to name a couple of places.

I don't find joy in anyone's death. But I can say I will not miss what this man stood for and the way he chose to have his followers go about spreading that belief here in Delaware and across the nation.

Personally, I think anyone from any religion who would rather display the power of their God's hate for something rather than the power of their God's forgiveness and love, needs to rethink the way they look at their religion. And as we witness in headlines from around the world daily, no one religion has a monopoly on followers who do this.

Yes. I know what the Bible says about God hating the wicked and violent and so on. I was raised Baptist, baptized Presbyterian. I'm not completely ignorant of Christian beliefs. To simply say "God is love" is religion light, as someone I trust in these matters has explained to me. A holy God, a righteous God, must hate evil so that sinners understand wickedness is not something to just play around with.

And it is those words that Phelps twisted to form his guiding belief.

"You can't believe the Bible without believing that God hates people," Phelps told a reporter from The Houston Chronicle in 1998. "It's pure nonsense to say that God loves the sinner but hates the sin. He hates the sin, and he hates the sinner. He sends them to hell. Do you think he loves the people in hell?"

Well, Mr. Phelps. You should be able to answer from first-hand knowledge now.

Does He?

Read Only in Delaware daily in The News Journal and share in the Only in Delaware conversation 24/7 on delawareonlinee. Contact Jeffrey Gentry at jgentry@delawareonline. Follow him on Twitter: @jeffreygentry